Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My kids have had IPads, and they are great devices, but theirs are extremely old and many of the apps were starting to not be supported. So it was time for an upgrade. I decided on buying the Kids edition of the kindle and my two girls have been extremely happy with them. I’ve also been impressed. Here’s what I liked and didn’t as compared to using an iPad for my kids: Good: The price of the device is a great value. Games on the display are colorful and bright, and both my girls can play for hours on one charge. The devices are easy to increase storage on. Unlike an iPad that is stuck at the storage you purchase it with, I bought the 16gb model and installed an inexpensive 128 gb sd card in them. The equivalent iPad would have been several hundred dollars more. I find the Kids plus software far mor intuitive for parents than how screen time on iPad works. It’s easy to set an appropriate age range on the kindle device and make sure my girls aren’t downloading anything that’s too mature, or too immature for their ages. Apple allows you to set limits on time, general maturity of content, and also block certain websites or apps (as does kindle) but the way that the Kids plus software works, it’s far easier to use in my opinion. The build quality, the protective case they come with, and the 2 year no worry guarantee exceeds what apple offers and costs far less. Finally the apps and content on the kids plus software are excellent. Apple doesn’t have anything like the breadth of content offered by kids plus and it’s all included for one year with the purchase price. I thought it was great that it’s not just games, but books, videos, and educational software as well. The content for the fantastic price of “free” is amazing and I can see paying the monthly fee for this after the year is up. It’s that good. Needs work: The games and apps are clearly tuned for the Kindle devices, but anything you do outside of just the kids plus software will seem very slow compared to iPads. If you are used to how an iPad immediately opens an app or menu, you will notice a lag when using the kindle. I would not recommend these for any sort of productivity. They are really only good for installed software. Any sort of web browsing and switching between apps, or opening third party apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc) will seem very slow by comparison. I will reiterate that for kids plus, these are fantastic, but don’t expect to use them for much else. Once an app is open they are ok, but moving between apps and doing admin tasks (changing passwords, updating profiles, etc) requires patience. Similarly, the non-kids software is fairly clunky. It operates on a modified version of Android and only having 2gb of system ram is very noticeable. You mainly see this when switching between your child’s profile and your own, which is necessary for many of the setup tasks needed to get the kindle ready for use for your kids. I often found myself wishing there was a way to access the adult menus from within the kids profile to save time, but alas, you have to switch to your profile, make updates, then switch back to your kids. In summary: If you can have some patience with the slowness of the device and the initial time needed for setup using the snails pace the system requires; this device is a no-brainer to entertain and educate your child. The parental software is excellent and easy to use to keep your kids safe. The device can easily and cheaply be upgraded to hold as many apps, books, and shows as your kid can handle. And the games, educational content, and books included with the 1 year free trial are consistently excellent. Finally, the 2 year, no worries guarantee will make sure no matter how hard your kid is on the device, Amazon will fix it for free. I give these my highest recommendation for young kids and tweens. Five out of five stars. I hope this has been helpful.